by Rusty Canyon

Royals: what we’ll never be!
We wake up late, don’t watch TV,
don’t give a damn for history.
No magic and no mystery

pervades the spaces we decree
the bastions of our liberty.
(It’s time for lunch? It won’t be free.)
The traffic stretches to the sea.

by Chris O’Carroll

Electric Kool-Aid acid tested prose—
A pyrotechnic style that zings, bursts, glows,
Word spasms, verbal throes and lava flows—
Dressed up the prim tsk-tsk outlook he chose
In cranky volumes written to expose
The trends he tagged as fast as they arose.

His kandy-kolored tangerine-flake prose
And dude-with-razzmatazz-aplenty clothes
Might sometimes tempt a reader to suppose
That his persona—showboat wiz who knows
More than most others how the story goes—
Is semi-right stuff, semi-desperate pose.

by Bruce Bennett

“Annabelle Lee ’18 Named Student Commencement Speaker”—Wells College memo to faculty

It was just a little while ago
In a college by a lake
When a maiden was picked whom you may know
For a speech, for Heaven’s sake.
I’m sure that speech will be mighty fine,
As such speeches always are,
But honestly, Mr. Poe and I
Think that’s pretty damn bizarre!

by Barbara Loots

No one frightens
more than Greitens.
Ethics? Sleazy.
Morals? Easy.
Ego: swollen.
Donors: stolen.
Law defier.
Smarmy liar.
Campaign cheater.
Girlfriend beater.
Blackmail, honey?
Don’t be funny!
Greitens’ buddies
slip him money.
Secret texts.
Lawyers vexed.
Oh, Missouri,
please, please hurry!
Just impeach him.
That’ll teach him!
(Maybe not–
the little snot
aims hell-bent
for President.)